LEVIATHAN (Andrey Zvyagintsev). 141 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (January 23). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNNN
Watch online: Netflix, iTunes
Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s epic drama Leviathan – which won the Golden Globe for best foreign-language feature and is up for an Oscar in the same category – plays equally well as slow-motion domestic tragedy and a study of the internalized corruption of post-Soviet Russia.
It’s set in a small town where a property dispute between a hotheaded family man (Alexey Serebryakov) and the venal local mayor (Roman Madyanov) leads to a series of escalating confrontations.
Framed as a kitchen-sink drama that grows darker and darker as the story unfolds, Leviathan’s misery advances inexorably. Even in happier moments, it’s always there, looming like the jagged mountain range beyond the characters’ village.
Toronto audiences might find some uncomfortable parallels in Madyanov’s character, Mayor Mer, a drunken, grasping boor whose single-minded selfishness destroys the lives of everyone unfortunate enough to get in his way.
But the more we see of him, the more textured he becomes, and the more loathsome. He’s not tragic in the slightest, but the ultimate embodiment of the ruthless cunning required to hold power in modern Russia.
Zvyagintsev’s characters occasionally walk past the beached skeletons of giant sea creatures. Madyanov’s performance suggests Mer is merely just the latest monster to plague this region. He’s a little less conspicuous, maybe, but just as destructive.
